Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Braves Sign Spiezio

Scott Spiezio will try to return to the majors with a team that rarelytakes a chance on troubled players.

Well, the Braves did give Ken Caminiti his last job and held on to John Rocker longer than most teams would have. Point taken, though.

By the way, I was looking up the 2001 Braves to make sure that was, in fact, Caminiti's last season when I noticed something fun. See if you can guess what this is:

89, 62, 76, 160, 77, 84, 94, 109

Give up? It's the OPS+ of their starting lineup that year (Chipper and Andruw are the above average guys). This is a team, you'll remember, that won the division and made it to the NLCS.

It's no secret that the Braves were a pitching-dominated team in those days, but as the careers of Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz reach their end, it's easy to forget just how pitching dominated they really were (and the 2001 team didn't even get all that much of a rehabbing Smoltz). For 100 games that year, the Braves trotted out either Rico Brogna or Caminiti at first base. Left field was manned by the decaying remains of Bernard Gilkey, B.J. Surhoff, and Dave Martinez.

Is it any wonder that this was the team which gave Julio Franco his shot at redemption?